Yilu

I first knew of her a decade or so ago now - the smart girl on the road to her valedictory address. I knew the name, I glimpsed her face but once. The second time I saw her - the one that stuck with me was in our subdivision. She was riding a bike. I was riding mine. I knew it was her. I don't think she even knew me. Fast forward to high school and we found ourselves in the same institution. I first spoke to her during our freshmen family day, eager to try out a game on her phone. All those other times I met her - in the hallway or elsewhere in the school grounds - I gave a vague nod of acknowledgement. We were never friends then, although that changed, very slightly, when a lot of us from our batch got addicted to Ragnarok Online. Among the things that I am very proud of, it's that I was classmates with all of us who graduated from high school, although we weren't classmates until our senior year. Like I said, we were more acquaintances than we were friends up until the day I decided to break the ice: I started bullying her after my own fashion, which is how I usually befriend somebody. After having gone through the past three years, the entire batch was well aware of her intense fascination with the color yellow. The walls of our classroom were apple green and, well, I love the color green, so I pointed out to her that she was surrounded and that the color green was clearly superior over yellow, and our classmates, realizing this, followed suit. And so it became known that green and yellow were at war. The rest was an immensely fun history.

I used to be one to struggle intensely against the looming change that tugged at all of us, threatening to unravel the knots we forged over the years. Needless to say, I found myself burned out and feeling tossed aside, but that is another story. Over the years, while I have grown distant from the rest of our batch, I still maintain our ties. Where there is awkwardness between me and the rest of our peers, with her, I feel I could run across endless fields of soil and sand, soaking in sun and rain alike: light and free, and most importantly, me. There is no judgment, only an understanding that can only come from kindred souls, bridging so wide a distance, physical and metaphorical, that it ceases to matter, which I sorely need at this stretch of my life's road where I have seen once-bosom friends shun me. At the end of all things, I know I will find yellow and myself upon a bench, sharing a good laugh as only friends can, and agree that it has been one maelstrom of a ride, and yet argue whether yellow or green is better than the other.